PAYING THE PRICE FOR CORRUPTION

The Chicago Citizen Newspapers has the first in a series of reports on the cost of corruption in the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois. The focus of this first article is about the effect of corruption on minority communities.

Instead of using funds appropriated by the state to pay for important social programs that help build communities, taxpayers are paying millions of dollars annually for the price of corruption.

A recent Chicago Sun-Times article pointed out that $2.7 million was reportedly wasted in state grants that could have gone towards helping communities with social programs including job training services for homeless men, youth services for African-Americans and literacy training for others.

While a Chicago Coalition for the Homeless report recently noted that Illinois should invest $2 million in transitional jobs programs with a therapy focus for people living in supportive housing facilities to help them move out of poverty and homelessness, Thomas J. Gradel, the coresearcher of a study entitled, Curing Corruption in Illinois: Anti-Corruption Report at the University of Illinois said, “You’re not only ripping off the taxpayers, but the homeless people that could have got the training. The people who were supposed to get the training, [didn’t receive] access to a job. The businesses would have benefited from the trained employees. So there’s a whole ripple effect caused by taking money to provide training and not providing it,” Gradel said. According to the Coalition’s report, less than one percent of the $270 million spent on workforce development in Chicago in 2004 targeted the homeless. The report pointed to another UIC study in 2001 on homelessness in the city and stated that of the 1,300 homeless adults in the collar counties, 19 percent were military veterans; 31.4 percent had been incarcerated, 46.3 percent were substance abusers and 13.8 percent were mentally ill.

In addition to groups like the homeless, it’s the children who end up paying the price through school dropouts and incarceration when funds fail to reach the people it was supposed to help, said Marrice Coverson, founder of the Institute for Positive Living, a non-profit organization that helps families solve educational, social and economic problems.

While 63 percent of Black male students in the Chicago Public Schools failed to graduate in 2005-2006 according to a study conducted by the Schott Foundation for Public Education based in Massachusetts, Coverson said, “We’re going to look up and we’re not going to have quality people to run our hospitals or banks.”

What about ethics reform is that the cure for all of our ills that includes corruption?

John Paul Jones, an Englewood community resident, said that ethics reform is not going to be a “quick fix” because the challenge lies in broadening the communication between elected officials and knowledge about how government works. “Those issues are not discussed in community settings. Until we get to that point where people can be comfortable talking about those things with their state officials without being blackballed, we’re going to have a disconnect of having state reform,” he said.

Go to the Chicago Citizen website and read the whole article!

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Cutbacks up, morale down at Peoria Journal Star

Ugh. Morale is down, really down, at the Peoria Journal Star. And it's all tied to the loss of newsroom jobs.



Jerry Klein is out at the Peoria Journal Star. Klein retired several years ago, but the respected columnist and arts writer continued to write a column for Sunday paper (although frequency had dropped recently). He was told today that this column was being dropped. How much money GateHouse is saving by dropping a less-than-weekly column, I don’t know.

Also, Don Baker — former teacher who wrote sports on a part-time basic for decades — was let go as well. As my source says: “Baker covered almost everything kind of sport, an uncomplaining and competent guy in an industry run by weak whiners.”

Another source sells me today what I am hearing from almost everyone still working there: Morale is low because of the staff reductions, but a core of reporters continue to plug away out of a commitment to their profession.

GateHouse Media decided to not replace two reporters who have left: Erinn Deshinsky (night cops) and Frank Radosevich II (East Peoria and medical beat). This source used the phrase “downright depressing and scary.” Everyone is certain there are more reductions on the way. Right now, some beats are being handed out to full-timers who already have their own beats to cover, or they are going to interns.

Also — special sections like the Family and KJS pages — are being reduced or eliminated, my source says.

The newsroom is protected by a union contract, so if there are involuntary layoffs, senior staffers won’t be affected. But how many more reductions in staff can the PJS endure before it becomes impossible to perform acts of journalism at an even adequate level? When staffing is so low it’s a struggle to fill the newshole with any kind of copy whatsoever, how can readers expect reporters to be real watchdogs and make that extra phone call or two?

I am told a visitor to the newsroom would be greeted by a vista of empty desks. It’s a depressing scene.

Crossposted to Peoria Pundit, part of the Blog Peoria Project.

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Being up-front with readers ‘no long applicable’ at the Journal Star

From today's Journal Star:

A statement released Tuesday by the Dahlquist* family did not run in full in Wednesday editions. Sports Editor Bill Liesse felt it appropriate it run now. We have deleted a third paragraph regarding Danny's wake and funeral that is no longer applicable.

Well, thank you PJS from saving readers from having to read a whole paragraph that's no longer applicable. I'm sure readers will appreciate you for not wasting a whole 30 seconds of their day. But for those of us who are curious, what WAS that paragraph? Thanks to blogger Peoria Illinoisan, we can read it:

“Based on the intrusive behavior we have experienced the past two days, we will be very disappointed to see television cameras and reporters at the visitation and funeral for our son, Danny.”

Of course, the Journal Star sent reporters to attend both services (here) and had photographers outside both (here and here), making sure the grieving faces of friends and family members are recorded for posterity.

This is probably going to mark me as a heretic at the Church of the Public's Holy Right to Know, but I've never really agreed there's a need for the media to attend these things. The news media's job, in my humble opinion, is to increase the public's knowledge and understanding of the world so that they can better function in and promote a free society. I'm not sure how looking at photos of people's faces as they are crying over their dead relatives makes America a better place.

Someone is sure to say that media coverage is these events is a way for all Peorians to cope with the grief over this tragedy. I'm thinking that gawking isn't about helping people grieve. All the people who do need to grieve are already there.

The sad truth is that the media often hides behind claims of the public's right to know when all the media is doing is satisfying consumers urge for voyeurism.

These were services for one young man. The family's request for privacy should have been honored. Just because it was possible for reporters to attend and physical possible for photographers to stand across the street and snap pictures, that doesn't mean it SHOULD have happened.

But people can respectfully disagree on this issue. So let's put aside the issue of the morality and ethics of photographing a funeral against the family's wishes. There also the issue of the Journal Star's deliberate decision to keep its readers from knowing that they've been doing this against the stated wishes of the family. How ironic that the public's right to know doesn't include facts that make the PJS look bad. It's somewhat short of a lie, but not by much.

It would have been one thing to not report on the family's statement. It's quite another to report on it, but leave out that stuff that makes your news organization look bad.

Twenty years ago, they would have gotten away with it, because the good-old-boy media industry frowns on one news organization criticizing another. Sure, it might have ended up in some media review that the public never reads. But this is the age of the Internet. There's no way that bloggers weren't going to catch this and report on it. Did the journalistic brain trust at 1 News Plaza really think for one moment that bloggers wouldn't find out and call them on this?

The Peoria Journal Star: Unethical AND stupid. What a sad combination. And, how sad that this is what is becoming of Peoria's one and only daily newspaper. We need something new in Peoria.

* Background: Four Bradley University students face aggravated arson charges stemming from the death of their friend and roommate Danny Dahlquist. They have told police that the fire started as the result of a prank that went bad.

Cross posted to Peoria Pundits.

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